


Within Your Reach (Can you hear me? Can you see me?)

by numberthescars



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Magic Realism, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/numberthescars/pseuds/numberthescars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Sherlock's death, John starts to fade away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in response to this (abbreviated) prompt on the meme:  
>  _John hasn't felt alone since he met Sherlock. But after Sherlock dies, he feels lonely again, even more so than before and eventually he starts to fade away until no one can see him._
> 
>  You can read the full prompt [ here.](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/17487.html?thread=103132495#t103132495)

 

 

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone."  
              –Ella Wheeler Wilcox

 

John first notices it one quiet morning about three months after the incident. He wakes up too early, with the light streaming through the windows across his face. He forgot to close the blinds last night. Groaning, he rolls onto his side and lifts a hand to shield his sore eyes. The light pours straight through.

How odd, he thinks muzzily. I seem to have gone see-through.

Shaving in front of the bathroom mirror an hour or so later, John pauses and looks at himself for the first time in over a month. His reflection looks wan, drained, unkempt, and he's lost at nearly a stone. But that's not what catches his eye. It's the edges: the tips of his ears, the ends of his hair...they look blurred, somehow. No, not blurred exactly. Faded.

Maybe if he'd run directly to another doctor, the whole thing would have stopped there. But John isn't bothered by it as much as he probably ought to be. After all, who has he got who needs to see him? he thinks, contemplating the cracks in the ceiling through his fingers.

After that first morning, the process speeds up significantly—almost as if his body was waiting for permission. Within three days, the fading has spread from the edges all the way to his core. His belly seems to be particularly susceptible: he has a slightly peach-tinted hole straight through his middle by the end of the week. His left hand is the first thing to disappear entirely. He doesn't think much of it until he picks up an apple from the table and sees it floating in midair. Then he wonders what other people will think.

But no one seems to care. He walks through London like a ghost, and his only partially present body draws no stares or whispers. It's weird, he thinks, until he realizes that no one's talked to him in weeks. Actually, John's been invisible for over two months. He's just the last one to notice.

 

 

Being invisible is really pretty fun, once John realizes what he can do. He can ride the tube for free without anyone noticing, sneak into movie theaters without a ticket, sample food from a five-star restaurant and no one’s any the wiser. Soon he’s confident enough in his own imperceptibility to rise above petty theft, and he creeps into the private wing of Buckingham Palace for a bath, takes a kip on a sixteenth-century bed at the V&A, and strolls through Picadilly Circus starkers, because why the hell not?

It gets old fast, he learns. Movies are boring, his undetectable body is rarely hungry, and what’s the point of getting anywhere fast when there’s nowhere to go? Even breaking rules is dull when he can’t laugh with someone about it.

John’s strolling through Southwalk one night when he hears gunshots and a woman’s screams. Army instincts shriek in his ears and he bounds forward. It’s a mugging gone wrong, the perp is already fleeing the scene when he approaches. He fumbles in his pocket for his phone, but it’s not there, he’s lost it somewhere, and besides he let the contract lapse ages ago. Falling to his knees, he tries to apply pressure to the woman’s wound but his hands keep slipping and sliding through her without any force. She gargles on her own fluids, the bullets must have pierced a lung, and he curses, yelling for help. He thinks maybe she sees him for a moment then, but he’s not sure because her mouth is choked with blood and she can’t speak. He yells again, but no one hears him. She dies under his ineffectual hands.

He tries to use a phone booth to call the Met. They think it’s a prank. When he slams the phone down on the receiver in frustration, he realizes that he doesn’t know whether his hands are clean.

He stands watch over the body for a night and a day. When the police finally arrive, he doesn’t recognize anyone.

 

 

Time passes, though John is barely aware of it. He never eats now, and often forgets to sleep, so there is little to mark the passage of time. It has become more and more difficult to distinguish body parts, even to himself. After days (weeks? months?) of invisibility, he’s lost the ability to recognize his legs. The world around him seems to have forgotten them too, he discovers, when he accidentally steps through a wall in Paddington Station.

After that, he floats more than walks. It’s easier, and really, if you have no feet, can you truly be said to be “walking”? So he floats around and sometimes through London, invisible, inaudible, inconceivable.

Sometimes he visits people. He waits around the corner from 221b for Mrs. Hudson quite regularly, and he’ll follow her while she does her shopping or goes to her bridge game. She looks well, and he’s pleased to notice that she’s got herself a stylish handbag and bright cherry lipstick—sure indications of a new beau. He glides through the wall into Harry’s flat a few times, but rarely likes what he finds there. There’s nothing he can do now, he sighs, shaking some air that could be his head. No, maybe there was never anything he could do.

He goes to St. Bart’s once. The offices all look the same, and he floats from one to another for a long time before he finds her. Molly is slumped across her desk, fast asleep with one hand curled around a cup of stale coffee. There’s a framed picture of a cat, stacks and stacks of forms and files, and a bottle of pale pink nail polish he’s never seen her wear. He doesn’t stay long. It’s strange, but the more he watches people the less he seems to care about them. There’s a resignation in observation that he never understood before. Maybe if he had known, things would have turned out differently.

He likes to drift through the railings along the walkway on the Tower Bridge and sit—well, hover really—on the edge. He tries to balance there on the leanest possible strand of himself, something like a finger or tongue, so that the smallest wobble could send him spinning down into the waves below. It feels dangerous, and that’s what he likes: the tingle he gets in an area that might have once been his gut when he’s risking it all. Of course, he doesn’t really think he’d drown if he fell. One of the perks of not having lungs, John muses.

Suicide doesn’t really interest him. Besides, if he waits long enough, a strong wind will surely come along someday and blow him away.

 

 

Molly shuffles down the block towards the tube station. It’s been a very long day, and she can’t wait to get back to the flat for a nice long bath. She’d splurged the other day on a fancy kit of bath salts called “Calm,” and god does she need it. Her mind’s already forty-five minutes into the future when a gleaming black town car pulls to a stop in the middle of the crosswalk, blocking her path. The door opens and Molly automatically looks over shoulder, even though she knows this car is here for her.

“Molly Hooper,” a cool female voice greets her, and Molly sighs, tucks away her daydream, and slips into the car.

The implications of the visit hit her as they pull away from the curb. It’s been three months since Sherlock’s disappearance, and she’s had no word from him. Does this mean bad news? She hyperventilates. Good news? She’s still hyperventilating.

Mycroft’s PA sends a nonchalant glance her way. “We’ll be arriving soon,” she states, though whether that’s meant to help Molly relax or wind her even tighter is unclear.

Mycroft is waiting behind a clump of dormant hydrangeas in a small deserted park. He gives her a tight-lipped smile as she approaches. “My dear Ms. Hooper,” he intones graciously, indicating with his umbrella that she should come closer. “I thought we might go for a walk.”

“Ah, okay,” Molly squeaks, gripping her purse tightly.

They move slowly towards a tiny pond, surrounded by swathes of dead grass. Mycroft looks down into the muddy water inquisitively. “This garden was established by the Apothecaries’ guild in 1673,” he says suddenly. “Some of the original plantings were used for embalming.”

“Oh?” Molly tries to sound interested.

“Indeed. I thought it would be appropriate considering your profession.”

They walk in silence for a little longer. Finally, when Molly thinks that she can’t stand it for another minute, Mycroft speaks again. “I want to know if you have been in touch with Dr. Watson.”

Molly stares up at him, all the tension draining out of her. Nothing wrong with Sherlock then, thank god, she thinks. “No, not at all. I haven’t seen him since the funeral, I don’t think he really—well, considering—”

“No, of course you haven’t,” Mycroft mutters to himself, his mind having already moved on now that he knows Molly doesn’t have the answers he wants. “Damn him,” he adds, and the uncharacteristic curse sends Molly’s blood pressure skyrocketing again.

“Why do you ask? Has something happened to John?” she presses.

Mycroft stills, looking across the park at the bare trees. “I can’t find him,” he admits softly.

“How long? Have you told Sherlock?” Molly steps forward in her concern, causing Mycroft to grimace and lean away from her.

“Two months. And no,” he answers, still not looking at her.

Molly frowns. “You have to tell him,” she says seriously. It’s stating the obvious, which she knows both Holmes brothers hate—but you don’t state the obvious because people want to hear it. You state the obvious because people _need_ to.

“Yes.” Mycroft replies curtly, but he doesn’t really seem annoyed. “I know.”

 

 

A sunburnt, blond man steps from the train, eliciting a not insignificant number of glances. Even in dirty jeans, trainers and a hoodie he’s striking, though the hard expression keeps all potential admirers at arms length. He moves quickly through the busy station, his eyes flicking left and right as though worried he’s being followed. The sleek black car that pulls up just as he exits the station suggests that his concern is not unwarranted.

“Mr. Sigerson,” the cool female voice calls. The man barely pauses to send a stony glare in her general direction before striding off down the street. The car follows slowly behind.

Mr. Sigerson—if that’s truly who he is—seems to know he’s being followed. As soon as the opportunity presents, he ducks into a narrow alley and down a flight of dingy steps where no car can follow. In the dark underpass he meets another woman, this time with the rotten breath and broken cadence of a long time smoker, who accepts his £50 solemnly and disappears further into the underbelly of the city. Sigerson himself consults the address on a slip of paper before moving on as well.

His destination turns out to be a small flat not far from Paddington Station. A few hurried words with the landlord, and he’s inside. It’s a one-room affair, bathroom (shared) down the hall, a miniscule kitchenette in the corner. The fridge is empty save a couple beers, but there is a shriveled apple on the counter, which Sigerson observes but does not touch. The bed is neatly made, with pajamas laid out in readiness for sleep. There is no closet, but a small suitcase at the foot of the bed is full of carefully folded clothing. The occupant of the room might have left only that morning, if it weren’t for the thick layer of dust coating every surface.

“He hasn’t returned here in months,” a quiet tenor calls from the door.

Sigerson rolls his eyes without turning to look at the speaker. “Obviously,” he returns, focusing his attention on the dust on the windowsill. “The question is, why?”

He moves around the room slowly, drinking in the details. It is clear that no struggle had taken place. The man who lived here left of his own volition. Still, the presence of the pajamas and the still-packed suitcase suggest that the departure was not entirely planned. His eyes stop at the desk in the corner of the room. There is a laptop—out of batteries—which he ignores. Instead, he reaches for the top drawer and pulls it open in one smooth movement.

“It’s still there,” the tenor speaks again, and Sigerson hisses with annoyance at the interruption. He shuts the drawer with a bang and rounds on his companion.

“It’s not suicide,” Sherlock growls. “He wouldn’t have left the gun if it were suicide.”

“There are numerous ways to kill oneself, as you are well aware,” Mycroft drawls, twirling his umbrella in lazy circles. “We must not rule out the possibility that Dr. Watson got…creative.”

Sherlock shakes his head. “The John I know would choose the gun. I’m certain of it.”

Mycroft looks at him oddly. “But this isn’t the John you knew.”

 

 

Sherlock doesn’t return to the flat again—it’s told him all it could. But what it says is strange. There are the traces of fingerprints on the windowsill, the apple and the dust. The dust says _missing for at least two months_ , the apple says, _been here in the past few weeks_ , the fingerprints say _been here in the past five days._ He thinks someone other than John left the finger marks, because they are too delicate and narrow, the impressions too faint, to match John’s broad hands and firm grip—but no one’s been seen going in or out.

He sends out more feelers through his underground network, cautiously, because he still wants to remain inconspicuous. Only the most loyal and close-mouthed informants are trusted, and even they don’t know exactly whom they are looking for or to whom they are reporting. Yet days turn into to weeks, and weeks turn into months. Sherlock’s irregulars return to him every time with the same nothing: Sorry sir, no one’s seen ‘im. And Sherlock grows restless.

How could John be gone? He wouldn’t, couldn’t—Sherlock had seen him at his grave, the intense but strong look on his face as he wished for a miracle. “Don’t be dead,” he’d said, so why would he take his own life? That’s not the John he knows. But the John Sherlock knew wouldn’t, couldn’t have disappeared, either.

He is forced to start searching morgue records. Molly helps, requesting files from morgues all across the city until her boss gets suspicious. They squat in her windowless office for hours, sorting through stacks of paper (why isn’t this information digitalized? he wonders), until the piles reach four feet high and block access to the door. The search is fruitless, but Sherlock feels nothing like relief. His pulse thumps with distressing regularity in his throat. Observation done properly should lead to action, and action leads to discovery. That’s how it’s always worked before. Now he’s trapped in a 5-by-8 office, surrounded by the names of the dead, and he’s paralyzed.

He slips out while Molly sleeps exhausted on her desk. He leaves a small bottle of pink nail polish by her right hand as an uncharacteristic apology for always leaving her with the mess. It’s her favorite color.

 

 

Sherlock likes walking along the Tower Bridge. It’s usually cool up there, even in the hot summer evenings, and never so quiet that he’s left alone with his thoughts. There’s plenty to see too: tourists and couples and drunk uni students stumbling home. He leans out on the railing and looks down at the water, waiting for a breeze.

But the air is still and heavy with humidity tonight. His lank blonde locks are beginning to curl up and stick to his forehead, itchy. He sighs deeply, resting his head in his hand.

 

 

John feels the heavy breath behind him. This is it, he thinks, contemplating the rushing waters of the Thames, his new home. Before he goes though, he turns once, just to see the face of his savior.

He freezes.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

  
“To see and to be seen, in heaps they run; Some to undo, and some to be undone.”  
          –John Drydan  
  
  
John finds that it is much harder to resubstantialize than it was to disappear. Invisibility came naturally to him—the process began without his even being aware, and continued without his input or effort. Undoing the process is another story.  
  
At first he is content to simply follow Sherlock around. The joy of discovering his friend alive is overwhelming. He floats beside him as Sherlock prowls the city, drinking in the familiar angular face with cheekbones like wings, eyes like ice, the deep breathy voice he would recognize anywhere. He doesn’t miss the changes either: the dusting of freckles, evidence of a sunburn, the blond hair and cheap clothes he wears—this makes John chuckle—as if abandoning his usual sartorial perfection could suddenly make Sherlock Holmes unrecognizable.  
  
For it becomes clear to John immediately that Sherlock wishes to remain anonymous in his hometown. He discovers the reason a week after he starts haunting Sherlock, in a dingy café with a sign on the door reading, “Closed by order of the Dept. of Sanitation.” Sherlock seems particularly edgy, pacing between the empty tables until the employee’s entrance opens and Mycroft enters.  
  
“Well?” Sherlock begins challengingly. “What have you got?”  
  
Mycroft sighs. “Manners, Sherlock. You’d think you were raised by a pack of hyenas.”  
  
“Worse,” Sherlock retorts in clipped tones. “I was raised by _you_. Now, what have you got?”  
  
Mycroft rolls his umbrella between his fingers once before answering. “He arrived last night by train.”  
  
“Excellent,” Sherlock exclaims, a feral grin spreading across his face. “He took the bait then. All is ready at 234 Baker Street?”  
  
“As you requested.”  
  
“Good.” Despite his obvious satisfaction, Sherlock looks slightly disgruntled. John suspects it’s the necessity of relying on Mycroft that’s souring his fun.  
  
As if to confirm John’s suspicions, Mycroft steps forward. “I hope you understand the ramifications of this, Sherlock,” he begins. Sherlock frowns ominously.  
  
“I’ll do the next tedious little case you come up with, if that’s what you’re after. I won’t promise to enjoy it, though,” he sneers in reply.  
  
“No,” Mycroft eyes him warily. “I mean that going back to Baker Street will not bring back Dr. Watson. If that’s what you’re thinking, we ought to call the whole thing off. There are other flats, Sherlock. _Better_ flats.”  
  
Sherlock tenses at once, back going rigid. “There is no better flat in London,” he hisses, turning to leave the cafe. John, invisible as he is, glares over his shoulder at Mycroft. Sherlock pauses with his hand on the door. “And this isn’t just about John,” he adds in a near whisper.  
  
“Isn’t it?”  
  
“I know he’s gone.”  
  
John tries to swallow around the painful lump that has suddenly appeared in his non-existent throat.  
  
  
  
  
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” DI Lestrade asks for the third time that evening.  
  
Sherlock heaves an exasperated sigh. “Must you keep repeating yourself? As I said the previous two times, as long as everything goes according to plan, you’ll get your man.”  
  
Lestrade ruffles his hair, his forehead crinkling upwards. He’s aged a lot in the past year and a half. There’s more salt than pepper in his hair, and new wrinkles have joined the laugh lines around his eyes. He looks tired already, and he’d only learned of Sherlock’s continued existence a few hours ago. “It’s just your plans have a way of going tits up, you know.” Catching Sherlock’s eye, he amends himself: “Occasionally.”  
  
“Rarely,” Sherlock asserts primly. “And this time it’s perfect. All you have to do is get your dogs to watch 234, and make sure they don’t enter until _after_ the shots are fired.”  
  
“Why can’t we just go in now if we know he’s in there?”  
  
“Because,” Sherlock sighs with the air of a beleaguered nanny explaining bedtime to a three-year-old, “Moran is a world-renowned sniper. I doubt any of your lot could touch him with a full clip in his hand. Once he’s fired, you’ll have to move fast before he gets a chance to reload.”  
  
“And how are you going to avoid being hit?”  
  
Sherlock raises an amused eyebrow. “I’ll duck.”  
  
Lestrade groans. “This isn’t the time for jokes. You know I don’t like you exposing yourself,” he continues. “There’s too much risk.”  
  
“Right. And jumping off a four-storey building…”  
  
“Was the most bloody-minded thing you’ve ever done,” Lestrade snaps, his expression hardening.  
  
“It had to be done.”  
  
“For god’s sake Sherlock. Think of John. It destroyed him.”  
  
Sherlock’s chilly gaze slides past Lestrade towards the window. “Time’s up. Get in place.”  
  
Lestrade sighs but stands, careful to stay out of sight of the windows. He moves to the door, then pauses. “Just—be careful. Don’t let it all be for nothing.” He leaves.  
  
Behind him, Sherlock stands silhouetted in the window. His hair is back in its usual dark curls, his figure once again draped in the customary dressing gown. He lifts the Stradivarius to his shoulder, closes his eyes, and begins to play. The first notes are odd and erratic. They sound the way it feels to meet an old friend after a very long time, that ache of recognition when both realize the other has changed. Soon, however, strains of Bartók are drifting through the open window and out into the deserted street.  
  
Night falls. Sherlock’s violin continues unabated. Bartók turns to Krenek, turns to Prokofiev. His hold on the bow is slightly too tense for Debussy, so he tries Dvorák. The house across the street remains dark and silent.  
  
It all happens in the blink of an eye. The air coagulates around the sound of a gun firing, a sharp gasp sounds in his left ear, and something pushes him to the ground as glass shatters above him.  
  
“Bloody idiot!” the air hisses at him. Sherlock rolls onto his back, but there’s no one there.  
  
Later, when Moran has been taken away and Sherlock has refused three successive shock blankets, Lestrade compliments him on his reflexes.  
  
“Yeah,” Sherlock answers, dazed. Lestrade casts him a concerned look, and considers retrieving another shock blanket. “Don’t bother,” Sherlock anticipates him, sounding more like himself. “I’m fine.”  
  
  
  
  
Sherlock has taken to sleeping in John’s bed, when he bothers to sleep. John concludes that there are two reasons for this. The first is that Sherlock’s own bed is now home to an extensive dead insect collection of indeterminate origin. The second is that John no longer needs it.  
  
Now that he’s moved back into 221b, Sherlock falls back into the old ways. He frequents crime scenes, solicits body parts from the morgue, stores revolting experiments in the pantry, and blows up the kitchen on a regular basis. But he also keeps the top shelf of the fridge free for milk that never seems to materialize, sits for long evening hours in front of the darkened television screen, and ignores his own laptop in favor of John’s, which he must have nicked at some point from John’s abandoned flat. He plays John’s favorite Mendelsson, though John knows he prefers Debussy. There’s too much space in the flat. This is when John starts wishing for his body back.  
  
He rather liked the idea of staying invisible initially—mainly for the privileged ability to see Sherlock at his most vulnerable, his face unguarded and unprepared for other people. John decides to become an avid collector of Sherlock’s expressions, and he observes with an unblinking intensity that would make the detective proud: Sherlock sleeping, Sherlock playing the violin, Sherlock meditating on the sofa, Sherlock poised with a beaker of human fluids in one hand and a pipette in the other. It doesn’t take long for John to realize that none of these expressions are new to him.  
  
Soon he longs for the thing he can’t have—not just to observe, but to instigate. What face would Sherlock make if John surprised him in the middle of a bath? What would he say if he could feel John’s arms wrapped around his shoulders? What would he do if he awoke one morning to find John sleeping, curled up opposite him in the double bed upstairs? Sherlock undoes his impotent resignation, and John longs to laugh together again.  
The first step, he decides, is to make himself felt. Touch was the last quality to abandon him, so it makes sense that it would be the first to reappear. He has high hopes after the incident with Moran, but several weeks’ fruitless attempts lead him to suspect the moment was a fluke, rather like the amazing feats of strength achieved by normal people under duress. He caresses and embraces, slips his “hand” into Sherlock’s and squeezes in next to him on the couch at night. It’s so intimate that he would blush if he still had circulation, but he doesn’t and Sherlock doesn’t notice.  
  
Next, he tries to speak to Sherlock. He judges it slightly more effective, because after several hours Sherlock starts to frown and shake his head, as if trying to free himself of a buzzing mosquito lodged in his ear. He does it once at a crime scene, until Sherlock growls in agitation. “Can’t you all just _shut up!”_  
  
Lestrade’s eyes narrow. “Nobody said anything, Sherlock.”  
  
“Well—” Sherlock grimaces to cover his confusion. “You’re thinking too loud. Go away.”  
  
After that, John confines his whisperings to the flat. He hovers on Sherlock’s shoulder and whispers in his ear: orders and admonitions to sleep or to eat, comments on Mrs. Hudson’s latest boyfriend, jokes about the state of the flat. Slowly he grows bolder and his monologue takes on the tone of a confession.  
  
Sherlock is lying on John’s bed one day, eyes closed, but still awake. John stands beside him, looking down at the freckles fading on his nose. “You look good with a bit of color, you know,” he begins, brushing a fingertip along the slope of one cheek. “I wonder where you went while you were gone. If I asked, you’d probably be disappointed that I couldn’t guess from the state of your fingernails or watch strap or something.”  
  
Sherlock brings his hands up to rest on his stomach with a sigh. John waits for him to resettle himself before going on. “France, definitely. Maybe Estonia. You always talked about visiting Tibet, so I bet you went there too. Mycroft knew of course, bastard.”  
  
Sherlock smiles, and John feels his lips twitch. Insulting Mycroft has always got him on Sherlock’s good side, and it seems to work whether his friend can hear him or not. “I wish you’d taken me with you,” he adds, suddenly realizing how true the words are. He’s silent for a moment, because there’s something like panic building in his chest and it hurts to speak.  
  
“Or told me. I would have kept your secret. I could’ve helped.” No, his mind rebels, no, this is getting too serious. He wanted to keep things light, because who wants be burdened with a clinically depressed ghost? If he’s going to haunt Sherlock Holmes, he’s going to do it right.  
  
John swallows. “Sherlock,” he starts, but his voice cracks and he has to swallow again. “Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock is frowning now, his mouth pursed in a tight line like it is when he’s concentrating hard. There is an acrid burning in John’s eyes, and he wavers as he stands over Sherlock. “Don’t you care about me?” he whispers. His tongue is hot and sticky and clumsy in his mouth, and he’s not sure if the words come out fully formed, so he bends down closer to Sherlock on the bed. “Because I still love you.” His heart overflows.  
  
  
  
  
Sherlock bolts up in bed as soon as the first hot drops hit his face, too real for the sweet daydream he’d been having. He is just in time to catch John as he faints into his arms.  
  
  
  
  
John wakes to the sound of beeping and whirring. The ceiling is white and the sheets are starched. Hospital, he thinks muzzily. The past year and a half have caught up with him all at once, and he’s sore and tired and _hungry_. His stomach growls as if on cue, and a dark curly head swims into view.  
  
“Food,” Sherlock announces abruptly, pushing a carton of Chinese (definitely not from the hospital canteen, John can tell from the heavenly smell) under his nose. As John fumbles with chopsticks, Sherlock surveys him for damage from beneath lowered lashes.  
  
“You’ve lost a significant amount of weight. The A &E doctor was shocked to find someone who’d nearly starved to death in modern-day London.”  
  
John considers the months since his last meal. “I forgot.”  
  
“To eat?” Sherlock huffs his disbelief.  
  
“Yeah. I was trying to find out what it’s like to be you.”  
  
Sherlock’s expression softens slightly. “What did you find out?”  
  
John shrugs, swallowing a mouthful of prawn toast. “I dunno. I don’t think it worked.”  
  
They are both silent for a moment, while John chews and Sherlock watches him chew. Finally, Sherlock cracks. “Are we going to talk about this?” he asks, waving his hand hand vaguely to take in John, his IV and the hospital bed.

John puts down the carton. “Do you want to?”

Sherlock nods. “Yes. But—later.” He ducks his head and slides his hand into John’s.

“That’s going to make it more difficult for me to eat, you know.”

“I can help with that.”

 

 

_Fin._


End file.
